Trump administration hit-job on Fauci smacked down hard

“Dr. Fauci is one of the finest public servants we have ever had. He is not partisan. His only interest is saving lives. We need his expertise and judgment in beating this virus. Every American should be thanking him. Every day.”

That is a smackdown for the ages against the White House campaign of defamation against Fauci. But who tweeted that? Nancy Pelosi? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? One of Fauci’s scientific peers?

No. The author is Elizabeth Lynne Cheney. Yes, that Lynne Cheney, the third ranking member of the House Republican Caucus, a hardline conservative and the daughter of none other than Dick Cheney.

That’s more than enough to demolish the campaign of smears against Fauci, but two additional facts perhaps should be mentioned.

As the administration was continuing in its vein of what has been called toxic optimism, Fauci predicted Coronavirus cases would double from 50,000 to 100,000. In the last 24 hours, 77,867 have been recorded, another record and part of an unceasing increase in cases that could soon reach 100,000 or more. Reality bites.

Then there is the vicious attack on Fauci in an op/ed in USA Today by Trump trade czar Peter Navarro. Navarro knows less about epidemiology than I do about plate tectonics (the standard theory in the field of geology). Serious economists like Paul Krugman consider Navarro a joke. Navarro fails to understand elementary issues in economics like how tariffs and Value-Added taxes work, according to Krugman. Yet, Navarro had the temerity to write that Fauci has been wrong on everything he has talked to him about.

Navarro embarrassed himself, the administration and USA Today, which published a retraction in the guise of the fact check it should have done before publishing a hit piece full of lies and distortions. In defense of USA Today, a down-market paper that doesn’t have the best and the brightest, it was probably inconceivable to its editors that they would get an opinion piece from a high-ranking member of the U.S. government brimming with ferocity and falsehoods. Credit them for recognizing the error and trying to correct it, something this administration never does.

If this were the championship game in a big tennis tournament like the U.S. Open, it would end thus: game, set, and match to Fauci, in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.